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Schools in Matabeleland South province are reported to have barred pupils with outstanding fees and levies from writing final examinations. Among the pupils that have been barred from writing the exams are pupils under the Basic Education Assistance Module (Beam).
The school authorities have reportedly sent home Ordinary and Advanced level pupils with outstanding fees. The O-level practical examination started on Tuesday while A-level examinations start next week on Monday. We hope this problem is confined to Matabeleland South schools. Examinations are very crucial in the school curriculum because they determine the eligibility of the pupil to advance to the next stage of their learning.
Some pupils after O-level enrol with institutions of higher learning such as teachers’ colleges, polytechnics or vocational training centres and nurses’ training schools while others join the field of work. The other pupils after O-level proceed to A-level and thereafter enrol with institutions of higher learning such as universities and in some cases polytechnics or teachers’ colleges.
Examinations are therefore very important in the learning process hence the need to adequately prepare for the exams. It is therefore very disturbing to learn that there are school authorities that have the temerity to bar pupils from sitting for exams. These insensitive school authorities should just be brought to book because they are destroying the future of these pupils. What they are doing is against Government policy and they should be punished severely.
Education is every child’s right and no individual should be allowed to deny a child this right. To start with, sending pupils home for non-payment of fees or levies has been declared illegal by the High Court.
In 2011 High Court Judge, Justice Maphios Cheda ruled that the contract to pay school fees and levies is between the parent or guardian and the school or college and therefore has nothing to do with the pupil or student. “The said contract can either be expressed or implied. The parent undertakes to pay all the fees which the school or college levies on the pupil or student from time to time.
Failure by the parent to do so results in the institution of legal proceedings against the parent to recover the said fees. No valid steps or proceedings can be taken against a minor who has no contract with the institution to pay fees. To do so is abuse of authority on the part of the institution which should not use undue pressure to enforce payment of fees using pupils as pawns,” ruled Justice Cheda.
The judgment fully supports the Government policy that no pupil should be sent home for non-payment of fees and levies but surprisingly school authorities have chosen to be defiant and are punishing innocent pupils by sending them home. Government has repeatedly warned school authorities against sending pupils home but every school term scores of pupils are sent home for non-payment of fees or levies. The situation has now got out of hand to the extent of school authorities barring pupils from writing exams when they have paid examination fees.
Government should immediately intervene and ensure no pupil is barred from writing exams which, as already stated, are very crucial in the learning process. Parents on their part should report the defiant authorities to the police so that they are arrested and prosecuted. A school head in Gweru was jailed a few years ago for defying a Government directive and the defiant authorities should face the same music. We want to once again implore the Government to urgently address the problem of defiant authorities that are barring pupils from writing exams.
Online Reporter